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Rob Ford’s fellow crack users can feel his shame: Fiorito

The mayor said he had “su-moked” crack cocaine; the way he stumbled over that word, as if shame tied his tongue. Unless he was about to say he “sometimes” smoked crack cocaine, which is a different story.

But I wondered what crack users thought when they heard him lay it on the line. Was there recognition? Was there contempt? Was there some sympathy or an awareness that only other users have?

Maria lives east of downtown in a tiny basement apartment. Her place is bright and spotless. She has a cat. She uses crack a couple of times a week.

You would not know. You cannot tell. You always thought that crack led to the bottom instantly and forever.

She first tried cocaine on holiday a dozen or so years ago; when she came home from her vacation she found more; instant enough.

And then?

“I met people who lived on the street. I had girls who were cracking, coming to my apartment. I got kicked out. I landed on the street. I wasn’t street-wise.”

She worked for a time in the sex trade. “It was easy to do.” No, it was not.

“I sold everything I had to get drugs. I was alone. I was lost. I was sleeping near some railroad tracks.” That lasted three years.

And? “I kind of woke up. Then I got housed.”

Now she’d like to find a job. What did — what does — crack do for her? “It acts on your nerves, in your head; it makes your heart rush.”

She has now found a kind of equilibrium.

She watched the mayor like all the rest of us; no, not quite like us. She said, “I was upset. I thought, ‘You jerk.’ ” Why is he a jerk?

“Because it took him so long to admit it . . . five weeks to get your s--t together?” She answered her own question. “I saw shame, I saw how hard it was; it has to do with that word, crack.”

The stigma of that drug.

Let me extract one thought from the longer conversation. She said, “It’s not the drugs, and the drinking; it’s his activities; it’s the lying.”

Yes.

But I was curious: can a person use crack just once? “There are people who can pick it up and put it down.” In her experience, however, those people are rare.

And then there was a brief moment of sympathy, one user to another: “If he’s run by his past, that plays into it. I feel for him. It’s not too late for him to stop. But maybe it’s too late for him to represent the city.”

Peter’s story?

He was a paramedic. His job exposed him to horrors. At the same time, he had horrors of his own; he was abused when he was young.

His reaction to the mayor’s admission echoed what Maria said. “It’s tied to the stigma; he’s part of a marginalized community now.”

That’s true enough: crack users are on the outermost of the margins.

Peter said, “I’ve met so many people like him. I’ve been in rehab with cops, with people who have power and positions of control — people who don’t like it when there’s a threat of that control being lost; it’s scary for them and their families.”

He should know. He has been in rehab 11 times, and he is a bright guy, self-aware; surely this must speak to the struggles ahead for the mayor, who seems not to be those things.

Peter’s first time?

“New Year’s Eve, 1985; I was in New York with my girlfriend, and a pipe came around. At that point, I was hooked, it was so intense, the smell, the taste, the high.”

He was homeless from 2002 to 2007; now he is housed. He suffered a recent setback; the harm-reduction project he was working on was shut down summarily. He’s using again, three or four times a week.

What does he get from crack? “Comfort would be misleading — it takes me away from painful thoughts; it freezes out those thoughts.”

And then he echoed Maria again: “It’s rare for people to only use once; it happens, but it’s rare.”

How rare is the mayor?

A pause: “I daresay he’s redeemable.” Any advice? “Oh, rehab; really . . . he’d learn about himself, why he does the things he does, why he feels the way he does.”

The mayor appears reluctant. Peter said, “I think sometimes it’s timing; it’s internal. Some people do it for their children, some people never do it.”

Does he feel any sympathy?

“I felt the city-wide relief. But when he admitted he used it, I heard a reporter gasp. I thought, ‘Lady, this is a good thing, let’s get on with it.’ ”

A final word?

“He should give rehab a shot. It might save his life. And he should give the rest of us a break.”

Crack may be the least of the mayor’s problems now, but yes, we need a break.

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